Well obviously the engine firing represents that they're farther along than some CAD drawings. They may not be able to fly in 2004, but I wouldn't classify them as miserable, considering them against many of the other teams.

Call me a cynic, but I think this website shows either that (a) Canadian Arrow rocket progress is going miserably and they are setting up this "astronaut" facility in an attempt to make some money, even if they don't have a vehicle that works, or (b) their priorities are wrong and they are wasting a lot of money on this center when what they should really be doing is getting a working rocket.

Actually, I think that this "Canadian Arrow Space Center" is neither of the above, but a clever way to raise funds. It's the same technique that Starchaser uses. Starchaser has this warehouse where they build stuff and store their old rockets; and every Saturday or so they have an "open house" where people pay to get in. I don't think these tours cost Starchaser much; because the building and equipment is already there, as part of constructing the rocket. And the benefits are substantial: the company makes money, the public gets excited, and the sponsors get visibility.

The same goes for Canadian Arrow. The simulators will be needed anyway to train the astronauts; so why not open up the building and let people take a look inside - for a price?

Well, training facility aside, I still maintain that Canadian Arrow is the best bet for a serious buisness, the reason I started this topic. Their engine firing shows that they have a solid desin, the fact that its 55 years old isn't necessarily a minus, it just means that their technology is as simple as possible. That's a bonus because simple things tend to not break. And even if they discover some serious fundamental flaw in the V-2 engine desgin, which they surely would have done by now, they could fix it with the intervening 5 and a half decades of rocket knowledge. My hope is that at some point Canadian Arrow makes a deal with some celebrity for a flight, thus creating publicity and money. IMHO, thery're still the best bet.

_________________"Yes, that series of words I just said made perfect sense!"
-Professor Hubert Farnsworth

"We are now working on our recovery equipment since the main engine is finished and operating. We just performed some successful drop test of the crew cabin to measure water impact deceleration," said Geoff Sheerin of the Canadian Arrow project in London, Ontario, Canada.

"We are now working on our recovery equipment since the main engine is finished and operating. We just performed some successful drop test of the crew cabin to measure water impact deceleration," said Geoff Sheerin of the Canadian Arrow project in London, Ontario, Canada.

Yeah, I heard about this, too, and immediately went to their website to see if there were any videos or prctures or mention of this, no luck. This suggests something either very good or pretty bad. If it's true that Canadian Arrow has completed their capsule and has done drop tests of it that means that they've just been hiding the info, perhaps to keep teams like Scaled to go into overdrive to beat them. This would be really cool because it means that all of the teams could be much farther along than we ever thought.

Or, the alternative is that they simply haven't done the drop test. That would explain why there's no mention of it at their website, but would also mean that no one really has much technology developed. I really don't like this explination and personally don't find it very likely, not because I don't like it, but think about it: why would they tell space.com anything?

One can only imagine what else groups like Canadian Arrow have done. It seems like a logical extension that if they've done the drop test, they've also run their engine for the full necessary duration of flight. You could even go as far as saying that perhaps they've even mated it to the first stage, wouldn't that be cool! If that were the case, I could easilly see Canadian Arrow launching by the end of summer.

_________________"Yes, that series of words I just said made perfect sense!"
-Professor Hubert Farnsworth

Hello, I just found out the xprize had a messageboard (didn't see the button on the top of the main page)

Senior Von Braun, The Canadian Arrow team is not good a updating their website, I guess they have more important things to be doing.

I can confirm that they did the drop test. Every so often the Space Channel over here in Canada sends a videographer to cover the tests, I saw them fire the main engine awhile back and I also recently saw them do the drop test.

Publicity is really hard to do right. If you market stuff you have to live up to it.

Playing quiet allows you to make sure investors get the right idea. If you make an announcement you have to live up to it, and when something goes awfully wrong (or explodes during routine mantinence) then you look really really really dumb. (da Vinci anyone?)

Does anybody think that Canadian Arrow is as far advanced in testing as Starchaser? Somehow I doubt it as Starchaser have completed drop tests and engine firings some time before. I do get concerned however that the website has not updated for ages. Scaled Composites website is pretty shoddy compared to their hardware so it might be a good sign.

I saw the Starchaser drop test on the dicovery channel, and didn't it fail? The parachutes got tangled and the test pilot almost bailed before he got the chutes sorted out. Everyone on the ground seemed so disappointed.

The manned drop test of the STARCHASER NOVA Mk2 capsule took place in July 2003. The NOVA capsule started it's decent under a drogue chute which stabilised the capsule prior to the pilot initiated deployment of the main steerable ram-air canopy.

There were two successful drop tests. There was a minor problem caused by the early deployment of the main canopy, which caused the capsule to yaw slightly. The test pilot did not bail out.

With respect to engine testing at Starchaser we have tested our CHURCHILL Mk 3 rocket engine a total of 7 times with the final test being a long duration burn of 54 seconds. The engine performed perfectly.

Starchaser Club members have access to the member’s only area of the Starchaser web site where they get regular updates and can discuss all aspects of the project with the Starchaser team via a forum.